Oracle plugs severe security holes that put systems at hijack risk

Oracle fixed on Tuesday 127 security issues in Java, its database and other products, patching some flaws that could let attackers take over systems.

This is the first time Oracle has included Java in its quarterly Critical Patch Update (CPU), as part of the company's previously announced plan to increase the frequency of Java security releases from one every four months to one every three months.

The new Java SE 7 Update 45 (7u45) version released Tuesday contains 51 of the 127 security fixes in this CPU. Fifty of those fixes address vulnerabilities that can be exploited remotely without authentication and 12 of them have the highest possible severity rating which means they can be used to take complete control of the underlying operating system.

Out of 51 vulnerabilities patched in this Java security update, 40 affect only client deployments which include the frequently targeted Java Web browser plug-in and 8 affect both client and server deployments.

These vulnerabilities can be exploited through Java Web Start applications or Java applets, and, in the case of flaws that also affect server deployments, by sending data to application program interfaces (APIs) in the vulnerable components.

Two other Java vulnerabilities addressed in this release affect sites that run the Javadoc tool as a service and host the resulting documentation. The Javadoc tool is used to create HTML documentation files.

The last vulnerability affects jhat, a developer tool that can be used to perform Java heap analysis.

Two vulnerabilities were addressed in the Oracle Database Server and both can be exploited remotely without authentication and can result in partial compromise of data confidentiality. Fixing one of them requires customers to enable network encryption between their clients and servers if data is sent over untrusted networks, Eric Maurice, Oracle's director of software assurance, said in a blog post.

In addition to these two vulnerabilities, two others that apply to Oracle Fusion Middleware also apply to database deployments.

Tables listing the exact number of vulnerabilities patched in each product, their severity score and the product versions they affect are included in Oracle's CPU advisory for October.

In addition to Java 7 Update 45, Oracle also released Java 6 Update 65 and Java 5 Update 55 that address the vulnerabilities that also apply to those older versions. However, Oracle discontinued public support for both Java 5 and 6, so these new security updates are only available to customers with extended support contracts.

"In order to address efficiently such a large patch release with over 120 vulnerabilities, we recommend working in the following sequence: Java first, as it is the most attacked software in this release, then vulnerabilities on services that are exposed to the Internet, such as Weblogic, HTTP and others," Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of vulnerability management firm Qualys, said Tuesday in a blog post. "Hopefully your databases are not directly exposed to the Internet, which should give you more time to bring them to the latest patch levels."

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